Land of Enchantment – Day 4

Day 4 in New Mexico is probably one of my favorite! If you want to go back and read earlier posts starting with day one in New Mexico, click here.

We woke up around 5:00 am again on day four.  We had a long drive ahead of us.  We knew we were headed south towards White Sands National Monument, but we also wanted to see everything in between.  Our first destination was to a ghost town that we found online in a community by the name of Cuchillo.  It took about 45 minutes to get there AFTER we got off the interstate.  I’m telling you… there is nothing but mountains and desert in New Mexico!  But it is beautiful!

As we were arriving in Cuchillo, we noticed a police car sitting on the side of the road… so naturally we slammed on our breaks to slow down.  As we passed the police car, we noticed that something just wasn’t right.  So we put the car in reverse and this is what we found!

It was at this very moment when we realized for the first time that we were in for a fun day!  Cardboard cop, a cop made from an old crash test dummy, and a hair dryer sitting in the window as if it is a radar!  WOW!  We had to stop!  And I’m so glad we did…

As we were taking pictures of this funny little cop car, and this fabulous old bar, a truck came around from behind the bar and the driver stopped to talk with us.  I’m sure he was curious what the strangers with the fancy cameras were up to, and he offered to take us inside the bar to show us around.  At this point I have to tell you that my heart skipped a beat.  Partly because I was excited to see inside, and partly because we were in the middle of nowhere desert land and getting a tour of a burned down bar.  I swear to you I started hearing banjo music. (Deliverance?)

The guys name was Josh Bond and he owned the place.  He told us that he bought the cop car from a little community down the road by the name of Truth Or Consequence (what a name for a town).  He placed the car where it sat because people obviously liked to speed up and down the road.  He told us the story of the Cuchillo community, and we were enthralled!  It was fabulous!

Apparently the town was established back in the 1850′s when it became a stop for the stagecoach for travelers headed to Chloride and Winston (an old silver mining town).  The stop served as a post office, bar, hotel, stagecoach repair shop, and mercantile (I’m picturing Little House on the Prairie at this point).  Unfortunately the place burned down several years ago, and is falling apart.  Josh is slowly trying to rebuild it, and it has even been established by Ghost Investigations of New Mexico that it is haunted.  Based on their findings, they believe the place to be haunted by at least one male spirit that was a cowboy in his life.  This is still an ongoing investigation, and they now hope to establish who this cowboy was.  To read more about Ghost Investigations’ time at the Cuchillo Bar and Store, click here.

Even if you don’t believe in the supernatural world, this place is eerie, mysterious, and fabulous.  The history is so thick that it is overwhelming.  I am the type of person that thinks about really deep issues, and I found myself wondering what kind of lives the people who used to visit this place lived.  I bet Billy The Kid even visited this place since he was buried about 100 miles from here at Ft. Sumner.

I really wasn’t prepared for touring the inside of this place and I had my telephoto lens attached to my camera, so I didn’t get much inside as far as scenery.  But I was able to get some close up shots of a lot of the old stuff that was inside and it was pretty fabulous… even the carcass of the kitty cat (sorry cat lovers).

To see more about the Cuchillo Bar and Store, click here.  It is my understanding that this place is available for most any type production in the entertainment industry.  I bet it would be awesome if someone chose this place to film a movie.

I wish we could have spent all day at Cuchillo, but we had a goal of getting to White Sands by sunset and we still wanted to visit Chloride, another ghost town about 20 minutes up the road.  So we headed out and kept our fingers crossed that Winston would be as fabulous as Cuchillo.  By the way… let me mention here that one of the main towns close to these places is called Elephant Butte.  Just thought that was funny.

When we arrived in Chloride, the first thing we noticed was a funny little tree in the middle of the road.    This tree is significant to the history of this place, and it is called “The Hanging Tree”.  Now it is my understanding that nobody was ever hanged from this tree, but it was threatened quite often.  Apparently Chloride did not have a court and it used the tree to deter people from breaking the law.  In 1879, the population of this town was nearly 3000 people, but only 20 people reside there today.  It is being restored, and the Pioneer Store is listed by the New Mexico Office of Cultural Affairs as a world-class museum.  I have to admit that I enjoyed Cuchillo a little better because it was less touristy, but the history and artifacts that have been preserved in Chloride were neat.  Here are many shots that we took while in Chloride.

We decided that we had to hit the road.  We seriously hoped to get to White Sands before sunset, and we still had over an hour and a half to go.  So we hopped back in the car and took off.  We ate at Sonic in the town Truth or Consequence.  It was funny because of a billboard sign I saw that said, “TRUTH… Drink and drive… CONSEQUENCE… Go to jail!”  Not to mention that Sonic asked me if I wanted red or green chilis on my BLT.  GROSS!  I didn’t order a BLT and C!  LOL!

After we got off the interstate at our exit to go to White Sands, I saw a fabulous mountain scene that I had to take a picture of from the moving car.  LOVE THIS SHOT!

On our way to White Sands, we had to exit and go through a border patrol.  Meagan, who was asleep in the back seat again, woke up rather quickly and put on her seat belt.  It looked like a weigh station for semi trucks, but instead it was border patrol making sure that we were all American citizens.  I’m sure that the air force base we were about to be driving through, and the fact that the Mexico border was about an hour away, had absolutely NOTHING to do with that.  LOL!

We finally made it to White Sands about 30 minutes before sunset.  We were really cutting it close.  So we drove around a couple of times scoping our the perfect spot for our sunset.  Let me tell you… it was at White Sands that I realized just how out of shape I am.  Climbing up and down those dunes made of sand really gave me a work out.  And I didn’t want to get sand in my shoes, so I decided to go barefoot.  MISTAKE!  I stepped on something that sliced my foot open, and I left a trail of blood in the sand.  It’s all good though; I’M HEALED!  Here are some shots.

I had such a fun time on day four with Meagan and Scott.  I really hope that this is the first of many vacations that Scott and I get to go on with a photography planned adventure.  New Mexico is probably the most fabulous and history filled place that I’ve ever visited.  I think I would live in New Mexico if I could talk Scott into it… although I would have to kidnap my best friends Meagan and Donna because only they can truly appreciate the beauty of this place with me.

This last photo was not taken by me.  It was taken by Meagan, who had come along with us to New Mexico for a few days.  She took this photo of me and Scott while the sun was setting.  I absolutely love this shot, and I can’t wait to get it framed and hung on my wall at home.  Thank you Meagan!